The Shotgun Start

Andy and Brendan return from a holiday break to catch up on a week of golf news. That doesn’t take long, as they hit on reports that Tiger and Phil are in for two more matches, Tiger is out for Kapalua, and Francesco Molinari’s announcement that he may not play on the European Tour until The Open. Then we get to an interview with Adam Sarson, whose year-in-review series has achieved somewhat of legend status on the golf corner of the internet. We get into Sarson’s process for the 2018 list, any challenges he had in whittling it down and then ordering it, and a few predictions for the 2019 list.

The Shotgun Start put the call out for questions for a rapid-fire AMA experiment and you all responded with a potpourri of incisive golf prompts and random topics. In keeping with the intent of an AMA, we try to go through every single question you had for us and answer as best we can on the fly. The topics range from changes we’d make to the PGA Tour to thoughts on golf media to course design to PGA Tour pros we’d most want to play in basketball. At times, it may go off the rails but we appreciate your feedback and questions.

We finish out the week with a few comments on the news of architect Keith Foster’s guilty plea to a federal crime with up to five years in prison. Then, prompted by an “event of the week” tip after our call for audience submissions, they get to an enlightening and amusing discussion on the the Minor League Golf Tour and its bedrock JupLife principles. After that quick news, we’re back to Part IV of the 2018 PGA Tour Memorial, finishing with the home stretch of the PGA Championship and the Playoffs. The season’s final major gets a fine tooth comb and we cover shanked wedges, maddening TV moves, DJ drama, and a certain Masters champion’s visit to Fenway Park.

We lied! Our little game of back-and-forth revisiting the big moments and forgotten absurdities on the PGA Tour will *not* be three parts. We got carried away having fun doing part three, which came in at almost two hours. So much like a Ryder Cup captain in distress, we called an audible and will split it up into four total parts. Part 3 ranges from the Travelers up to the PGA Championship. We cover a spate of cheating controversies, John Peterson retirements, Military Tributes, oddball fields at opposite events, the summer of Tiger, and one of the great Sundays in major championship history. Stay tuned for part 4 later this week, when we wrap up with a deep dive on glory’s last shot and the playoffs.

Andy and Brendan return with a weekend results update and react to the controversy engulfing the outcome at the PNC Father-Son Challenge. Then they move onto part two of their PGA Tour season review, going blow-by-blow starting with the Masters and ending with that crazy weekend at the U.S. Open. You’ll get a memory jog on some results, but more importantly, a recap of all the entertaining sideshows that made this year so fun. From angry Angela Garcia to bird strikes to JDay health maladies to Holly Sonders Freudian slips, they attempt to unearth the most enjoyable forgotten moments in part 2 before putting a bow on the entire summer with part 3 on Wednesday.

As part of an end-of-year series, Brendan and Andy run through the first quarter of the PGA Tour schedule to review key moments, controversies, and plenty of amusing ephemera you probably forgot. As you can guess, this is not meant to be a cut-and-dry recap of what happened, but rather a tribute to the many oddities and silly dramas that are often forgotten by the end of an interminable season. They alternate events, with one host armed with some research while the other trying to recall or guess cold on what transpired, starting from the top at Kapalua.

With just three events this week, one of which Andy vehemently proclaims “doesn’t count,” we look to the ends of the earth for the distinguished “event of the week” honor. This leads to longer-than-expected but delightful discussions on the Dunhill Championship and the Indonesian Masters, aka the Westy Invitational on the Asian Tour. For the Dunhill in South Africa, we review Gary Player’s Leopard Creek redesign, with a spotlight on some of its curious finishing holes and what the content makers at the PGA Tour would do with all the animals that roam near its grounds. We also examine the purse size and field makeup of the Indonesian event. Andy makes a plea for no John Daly Jr. coverage at the Father-Son. We then discuss Brooks Koepka taking umbrage with an arbitrary end-of-year list and how that relates to an interesting Golfweek article on players working with the PGA Tour to try to grow their brands on social media (we argue to stop taking the Tour’s suggestions as gospel and just be authentic, among other things).

Brendan and Andy return from the weekend to discuss King Louis’ win in South Africa, as well as the Open qualifiers that punched their tickets to Portrush. They then transition to the QBE Shootout for a quick analysis on some of the scoring yielded by those different formats. If the Tour really wants to Live Under Par, should they put more scramble formats on the schedule? A lengthy discussion on Web Q-School focuses on the studs that made it, some that didn’t, super-low scores on an apathetic layout, and outrage over the lack of coverage during a slow time of the year. Finally, they wrap with a news segment that focuses on Steph Curry’s event likely going to Lake Merced and the Damon Green-ZJ breakup that shook the golf world to its core over the weekend. They speculate on some cryptic quotes from ZJ that may have led to the separation.

Almost no one watches the QBE Shootout, but it’s an event with a solid foundational concept and some good formats! Brendan and Andy review the 3 separate formats for the 3 separate days and ponder other two-person teams that could pump more life into a weekend that’s sans college football. They dive in on Q-School developments, which provokes a fun/agonizing Flashback Friday from Andy. Brendan opts to flashback to one of the oddest couples to ever play the Shark Shootout as well as Bryson’s face-on putting experiment at the Shootout (and subsequent freakout on the USGA when his club was ruled non-conforming). Finally, with manufacturers starting to tease and announce their new wares for 2019, they recall and laugh at some of the worst-named clubs of all time.

It’s a light week for golf on TV but the content gods always provide for the Shotgun Start podcast. Andy and Brendan discuss the report that Tiger Woods may get his own Monster drink and he may now also have a new Presidents Cup assistant captain if one oddball star’s pleas are answered. They then explore the idea of the Tour providing a system that gives NCAA stars access to more playing opportunities. Andy explains what this embrace of the youth movement says about the state of the game. Then they move to the PGA of America announcement that they’re headed to Texas as part of a mega-development that is being called the “Silicon Valley of golf.” They offer a skeptical critique of the lengthy release outlining these plans. Finally, they wrap with a discussion of the South African Open in Joburg, where three spots for the British Open are up for grabs. Is this the best way to qualify for the world’s major championship?